Bills to rein in home insurance costs fail to advance in Oklahoma Legislature

OKLAHOMA CITY — Two bills aimed at reining in soaring home insurance costs went down in flames Thursday, but Democrats and Republicans agreed that the state cannot afford a legislative punt on the issue.

The bills, Senate Bill 1444, and Senate Bill 1438, both authored by Sen. Julia Kirt, D-Oklahoma City, failed to advance through the Senate Business and Insurance Committee.

SB 1444 would have given the Oklahoma Insurance Department authority to review proposed rate increases in advance and to potentially turn companies down contingent on a determination of excessive profits. Currently, that would not be allowed by law because there are numerous insurance companies that write policies and a competitive, free market has been determined to exist in Oklahoma.

Committee members voted 5-4 not to advance the bill. However, it did merit several minutes of debate.

Kirt said the Insurance Department needs more "tools" to ensure that premium increases are justified and that companies aren't charging Oklahomans more each year simply to pad their profits.

"We are in such a critical time in our state. It is an emergency for homeowners. It's an emergency for landlords," she said. "People really do need stability, and when you talk about people dropping their home insurance because of their premium increases, it's dangerous for our communities. It's dangerous for our families."

Kirt asked Rebekah Williams, who owns a home in Sulphur and is a local advocate for senior citizens, to speak about her experience with insurance. Williams said that when her policy came up for renewal last year she found out that her premium bill would be raised from $178 a month to more than $540.

"It totally took my breath away," she said.

Williams said she worried that many seniors may have to drop their insurance and will be left vulnerable to tornadoes or other disasters.

"If you don't have it, it's going to be horrible," she said. "I'm very, very concerned about the state of Oklahoma not having any type of oversight or regulation when it comes to rate increases."

Sen. Aaron Reinhardt, R-Jenks, was among lawmakers who agreed that there's a need to address insurance issues, but who urged caution against aggressively tightening regulation. Some pointed to other states, like California, where they said overregulation resulted in insurance companies leaving the market and consumers left paying higher prices.

Reinhardt asserted that tornadoes, like one that struck Sulphur in 2024, and other severe weather events, are the main drivers of rising insurance rates in the state.

"If you've ever looked at a convective storm map, which is tornado and hail, it looks like a dartboard with a bullseye on the state of Oklahoma," he said.

He cited inflation, which has affected everything from construction materials and labor to the valuation of homes, as another major factor. Increases in home valuations very typically have outpaced increases in insurance premiums, he said.

Kirt's other bill, Senate Bill 1438, would have obligated companies to provide detailed information to the Insurance Department about premium revenues, interest dividends and their incurred losses and expenses. The department would have then had authority, after a review, to potentially make a determination of "excessive profit" and order some level of refund of company proceeds to policyholders.

The Senate committee voted 7-2 not to advance the bill.

Reinhardt suggested that there should be better ways to address rising insurance costs. One, he said, could be to make consumers more aware of options on policies offered by several dozen companies that do business in Oklahoma.

"This is a problem, and (Kirt) is right. We do need to take this up," he said. "We have a lot of bills that we are going to hear in both chambers … (but) I do think we have to proceed with caution," he said.

Leaders in the Legislature addressed the issue at a forum Thursday hosted by the Oklahoma Press Association.

Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, said multiple bills remain alive. He said lawmakers are "very well aware" of concerns of homeowners not only about insurance but also about property taxes.

"We're looking at both of those and seeing if there's something that we can do," he said.

He suggested that tort reform could help to bring down insurance costs by, among other things, addressing and eliminating cases of fraudulent claims made against companies.

"There's multiple pieces of legislation dealing with the insurance industry. I will not be supporting rate controls that end up running insurance companies out of the state," Paxton said. "These are things the Legislature is taking seriously and running through the process, so we'll see how it all comes out."

Kirt said she has been told by national experts that lawsuits are not a primary driver of rising insurance premium costs and are not a big issue in Oklahoma. She said she's hopeful that lawmakers will pursue more than just tort reform in addressing the issue.

"To me, if we really want to talk about price reduction, that should not be the first priority," she said. "We need oversight and reform."